By: Ali Elizabeth Turner
When I walked in, Mayor Ronnie and Amy Golden were talking about some projects for the Athens Activity Center, of which Amy is the administrator. While the Activity Center is largely for seniors, all are welcome. Monday’s theme was “School Days,” and Kay Burlingame, as always, had made plans sure to please. A special event was going to be happening at the noon hour, and the word Amy used to describe what Miss Kay had cooked up for the day was “kitschy,” and it was meant with all affection. “Kitschy” is a Yiddish word that when used positively combines ultra-sentimentality with not-so-stellar art. If someone had a grandmother who had several paintings of sad-eyed clowns hanging around her living room walls, her taste in art could be considered kitschy, and it almost makes you love Grandma all the more. Or, take the paintings of dogs playing poker, if you have seen those. What everyone was about to experience was completely kitschy, and as Amy said, “cool.” (It was my choice to spell it with a “k” just for this article, by the way.) So, what happened? Folks brought in their ”School Days” pictures complete with freshly lost milk teeth, cowlicks, buzz cuts, perms, and more. The identity of the student was only a number, and the audience had to guess. Mayor Ronnie’s pic was taken when he was about three, sitting on a porch in his little Liberty overalls with a book on his lap. The event was a big hit, and the participants brought school supplies for the Athens City Schools. There was more to celebrate. Athens took 32 medals in what is the known as the Masters Games of Alabama! Many thanks to Miss Kay, Amy Golden, and all the rest of the volunteers who made the day a success. The mayor also wanted to emphasize that we call it the Activity Center rather than the Senior Center. “It’s about activities, not age,” he said with a smile.
We discussed Hurricane Helene and what we as a city were doing to help. Utilities departments throughout the South and beyond have a reciprocal services agreement which basically means that if we are in trouble from a storm, others come help, and if they are in trouble, we go to help. “We’ve been on both ends of this,” the mayor said. Mayor Ronnie then called Blair Davis, who heads up our electrical crew, and as of this writing we have a team of six that has gone to the Erwin, TN, to help. Depending on need and the length of time it takes to “git ‘er dun,” they will stay out ‘til next week and then a fresh crew will replace them. The mayor finished that conversation with, “It’s a dangerous job, and we appreciate it,” and Blair responded “Glad we can help.”
Of course, we spent some time touching on the most prickly of our current challenges, that being the animal shelter. The process of deciding on the best way to handle that and all the other was put squarely under the question, “How do you (we) grow well?” That is the perennial question, and there was one thing to do: pray. So, we prayed, and once again it was time for Ronnie to roll.
By: Ali Elizabeth Turner
October 4, 2024
